More from from Rome and beyond

• A THIRD-WORLD POPE? | 11:15 p.m. ET 

The possibility that the next pope could come from Latin America, Africa or Asia is creating a buzz from Mexico City to Manila, from Tegucigalpa to Kinshasa. Many Latin American Catholics said the only way to improve on a papacy they overwhelmingly supported would be to select someone from their own ranks.

Their hopes were fueled by the last papal conclave, in which a Polish archbishop became the first non-Italian pope in 455 years, as well as by the global outreach John Paul II made the cornerstone of his papacy. They also have been boosted by sheer numbers: Half the world’s 1 billion Roman Catholics live in Latin America alone, and the church is seeing explosive growth in Africa and Asia.

Even outside Roman Catholicism, leaders from the developing world saw a chance for change.

“We hope that perhaps the cardinals when they meet will follow the first non-Italian pope by electing the first African pope,” Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu said Sunday from Cape Town, South Africa.

Many Catholics in poor countries said a pope from their own regions would better understand the challenges they face, and would make the church more relevant in the lives of its increasingly diverse followers.

“It will further help the church, whose membership is growing fastest in Asia, Africa and Latin America, if a new pope emerges from one of those areas,” said Isidore Chukwuemeka, a Catholic in Lagos, Nigeria. “That will help build loyalty in the universal church and reassure people that the rich countries are not calling the shots.”

• POPE’S LAST MINUTES | 8:30 p.m. ET 

In his last minutes, Pope John Paul II stared from his bed at the window of his airy, sparsely furnished Vatican bedroom, looking toward the crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square and whispered “Amen,” according to accounts of the pontiff’s last moments.

While the Vatican has not confirmed either story or given its own version of John Paul’s final words, two accounts claim the pope’s last utterance was “Amen,” the traditional close of a prayer. Amen is Hebrew for “may it be so.” It was not clear, however, if the story originated from more than one source.

The Rev. David O’Connell, president of Catholic University in Washington, D.C., told CNN on Sunday that a cardinal, a friend whom he did not identify by name, recounted that just before the pope died at 9:37 p.m. Saturday he grasped the hand of his long-serving private secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz.

“And looking out the window, the curtains were not drawn, he was looking out the window. And he said, ’Amen.’ And then he passed on — beautiful, touching communication, a sense that it was finished, it was over,” O’Connell said.

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica quoted the Rev. Jarek Cielecki, a Polish priest, as saying that the 84-year-old pope raised his right hand as if to offer a blessing to those reciting the rosary in the square.

“Once the faithfuls’ prayer ended the pope made a huge effort and pronounced the word ’Amen,”’ he said. “An instant later he died.”

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